Making a difference: First United Methodist pastor energized by ministries, partnerships

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SOUTH BEND — Spend a little time speaking with Pastor Vickie Van Nevel, pastor of First United Methodist Church of South Bend, and you'd never know she considered retiring from her calling a year ago.

After 20 years as pastor at Northwest United Methodist Church, she was asked to head South Bend's downtown church that has many thriving ministries for the South Bend area's homeless, hungry and poor people.

And she said she would not have it any other way.

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Van Nevel, a 1977 Riley High School graduate who pursued a nursing degree at the Memorial Hospital School of Nursing, says her eventual calling to become a Methodist minister has fit in with the work she is doing building partnerships with the various social service ministries that are housed in the walls of the longtime downtown South Bend church.

Her nursing career at Memorial Hospital began with her serving in various roles, last serving as director of outpatient surgery. She said she got "a bit restless" as her last role actually took her into the church when she worked as a congregational nurse at First Presbyterian Church.

That experience began with clinics and health services for people in the congregation. Her presence also prompted church officials to ask her if she was interested in becoming a deacon or an elder because she already was serving the health and physical needs of the congregation.

Answering that call, she attended Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. The experience showed her that she was, indeed, answering a higher calling.

At the end of her first year in the seminary, Van Nevel was offered the chance to "fill in for about six weeks" at Northwest United Methodist Church in South Bend because the church's leadership had learned that she could preach and she had leadership experience from her years as a nurse.

"I had made up my mind I was not going to love them," Van Nevel recalled. "I was just going to come and do my job. And I was there about two weeks and knew this is where God wanted me to be and what God wanted me to do."

Fast forward to July 2022, and Van Nevel was planning her retirement when she was approached on possibly delaying the end of her career.

"I got the call that said if we can leave you in South Bend, would you consider not retiring," Van Nevel said. After some negotiations, she said, she took on the challenge of moving to the downtown church that has a robust ministry for the area's residents.

Uniting churches, partnerships

Part of her mission is trying to bring both the Northwest and First churches together in a common worship ministry.

"We have a fair amount of Northwest people that have come over, and so both churches are working together to do ministry," she said, adding that the ministries that serve the homeless and poor can be done easier in the downtown location.

The ministries that First United Methodist Church has been offering include:

● Downtown Soup Kitchen: For more than 30 years, volunteers have served a soup meal and carry-outs for guests. The Downtown Soup Kitchen serves guests from 11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the Social Hall.

● Upper Room Recovery Community: For nearly 30 years, the church has been a site for programming and support for men and women facing issues in recovery from addiction. Also, in 2019, the parsonage house was opened as a 16-bed sober living facility for women in recovery from addiction.

● Heart and Sew: a community sewing ministry that creates quilts, hats, scarves, mittens and other sewn goods for shut-ins, Madison Academy students, people with dementia and others.

Van Nevel pointed toward partnerships the church has that either already existed or have been added, such as with Faith in Indiana/Faith in St. Joseph County, South Bend Civic Theatre, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous and Memorial Hospital retirees.

Van Nevel said the church recently forged a partnership with Jetta Cruse and Adaptive Arts, a program Cruse spearheads to provide art expressions for people of all abilities through adaptive art, music, theater, comedy and dance education.

And work with offering other agencies space in the church to provide services for people in crisis has given Van Nevel hope a deeper faith is serving the community through Christ's ministries.

For example, Van Nevel said, it is the churches' hope to answer some of the questions and concerns over gun violence,

A small sign sits in Van Nevel's office that reads "GOD not guns," and its work with groups like Faith in Indiana shows the church's commitment to finding possible solutions.

"We want to work with all the churches to make a difference with gun violence in our community," she said. "I certainly think the shooting of Dante Kittrell last year was a wake-up call to some of us."

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Kittrell, 51, was shot by police in July 2022 after police were called to a field near Coquillard Elementary School in South Bend on reports from school employees that there was a suicidal man with a gun in a field near the school off North Sheridan Street. Kittrell was known to suffer from mental health issues, and his death sparked a community debate over how police and the community deal with acute mental health services for people in crisis.

"We also feel that a lot of the issues in our community and in many inner-city communities begins with the mental health of our residents," Van Nevel said.

A church for all

Van Nevel said her church is moving past the fallout from the recent Indiana Conference of the United Methodist Church (INUMC) meeting, when nearly 200 congregations cut ties with the Protestant denomination. Van Nevel and other state church officials cite human sexuality viewpoints as the main reason behind the split.

Last year, an additional 100 or so churches left INUMC. Seven hundred Hoosier churches are still affiliated with the United Methodist Church, according to the Rev. Dr. Marti Lundy, Superintendent of the North District of the INUMC. Lundy was cited in a recent WNDU news report on the schism.

Lundy said the North District, which encompasses a large portion of Michiana, has had only nine churches leave the United Methodist Church over the last two years, the lowest number in the Indiana conference.

Van Nevel characterized the disaffiliations as a debate over a movement with a different ideology of what the United Methodist Church should be.

"The First United Methodist Church accepts everybody. We don't care who you are, what you've done, who you love," Van Nevel said. "You are welcome here. And you're welcome here because it's not our church. It's God's church. Jesus teaches us that we need to love God and also to love our neighbors as ourselves. And part of that is making people feel welcome."

She says LGBTQ+ youth and young adults often feel they are under attack and are not accepted, but Van Nevel stressed that the church is a place where they should feel safe to accept the word of God.

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"They want to come to church, and they want to be loved," she said. "They want to hear about Jesus Christ. They don't want to hear people arguing. They don't want to hear political issues. They want to hear about Jesus, and they want to be loved and accepted for who they are.

"And as a conference, especially as a district and certainly as a church, we're just moving forward with making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. That is our mission for the United Methodist Church."

Looking ahead

Van Nevel said the church's mission is always changing and she hopes that the work in serving the South Bend area's needy will continue through partnerships made with agencies that can help in that mission.

"I am excited about being here. This is such a different type of ministry for me, but it's what I have a heart for," Van Nevel said. "I feel that I've been given a few extra years now to be able to do that. I don't know how many years that will be, but at least right now, we're moving forward."

Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at gswiercz@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Pastor Vickie Van Nevel lauds First United Methodist Church ministries